Directors Alex Garland & Ray Mendoza on Working Together for Their Film 'Warfare' | THR Video - video Dailymotion

Hollywood Journal

'Warfare' directors Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza chat with THR at the red carpet premiere and talk about why it was important for them to have the first screening of the film to be at the American Legion with an audience of veterans. Plus, They emphasize why it's always necessary to give an honest account of history and casting actors with the right attitude.

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00:00You guys, so tonight's not the first screening, the veteran screening was the first one.

00:03Tell me why that was so important to have that be the first screening in L.A.

00:07Yeah, I mean, American Legion is a home for all veterans where we come if we need help,

00:12if we need to get together to help each other out.

00:15And so I think I wanted them to be the first ones to see it.

00:18It was made for them.

00:19L.A. is a veteran played by Cosmo Jarvis.

00:22So I thought it was important that they be the first ones to see it.

00:25Everyone that's come down the line tonight has praised you guys,

00:29but also just said what a singular experience this has been for them.

00:32I mean, you've made a lot of movies in your life.

00:34Tell me how this one, why you feel like this is just obviously so much different

00:37and what this brotherhood means to you.

00:40It was absolutely a singular experience for me, too.

00:44The reason it was singular was him.

00:47It was working with Ray.

00:50And did you know, because I know you hired him before on Civil War,

00:54when did this conversation turn into something more?

00:56We were in the post-production period of Civil War.

01:01And, you know, I'd worked closely with Ray during that film.

01:06And while editing stuff, I just called Ray up and said,

01:10hey, are you interested in doing this?

01:12And he said yes.

01:13And we just worked from that day, pretty much.

01:17And you lived this.

01:19And I love what you had to say about to hire these actors,

01:22they had to have fire in their guts and they had to have the right attitude.

01:24Tell me about that.

01:26Yeah, I think that was important based on the schedule that we were going to be running.

01:29We didn't have a lot of leeway for error.

01:32And so I needed everybody firing at all cylinders, which includes the crew, included us.

01:37And so, yeah, we all worked in concert to achieve this great objective.

01:40You put a movie out last year that landed at a certain time in our political landscape.

01:44This one is also coming out at a time when people are thinking a lot about politics.

01:48I think, also thinking a lot about war.

01:52I think my feeling was that there is never, like, a bad time to try to make an honest war film

02:02or book about war or play or poem or whatever it is.

02:07The thing that was available to Ray and myself was to make a film.

02:10And I would also say it is a particularly strange time because conflict feels so close and so present.

02:21But to be honest, it would always have a place, an honest account of war, any decade, any year.

02:29And then can I ask you, too, I really loved what you had to say because it felt honest as well about

02:36you weren't even able to process what had happened until many years later,

02:40put the pieces of your memory together to actually have a conversation.

02:43How are you feeling now about it after, you know, being knee-deep in the trenches on this film

02:47for the past couple of years and then on the eve of its release?

02:50Yeah, a lot better. It's been therapeutic along the way.

02:53Alex was critical in that.

02:55But I think each time we show this, getting that stamp of approval,

03:00it's like less weight on my shoulders to finally, you know,

03:04we'll see what the public has to say about it.

03:07But from a veteran's standpoint, I think we're united for the most part in that front.

03:12And that's the most important thing to me.

03:14Not to embarrass this guy, but I got to change some positive energy here after what I did.

03:19What did you learn from him?

03:20Hey, you didn't do anything.

03:21I learned a lot from, you know, obviously film techniques

03:28and how to, you know, extract emotion, you know, out of scenes.

03:34No, I mean, I learned...

03:37It wasn't so much what I learned from him as what he provided for me,

03:41which is like a platform to...

03:43Someone to trust to express, you know, those emotions and trauma

03:47that have, like, pushed down for a really long, long time.

03:49So it was more of a, I think, just like a group effort

03:53and the trust that we built that means more to me.

03:56Amazing. Thank you so much.

Directors Alex Garland & Ray Mendoza on Working Together for Their Film 'Warfare' | THR Video

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